An iGEM project is a truly collaborative experience. Realising our project idea required a lot of help: big and small, and in all shapes and sizes and colours. Here are all the people who extended their support with their precious time and experience and helped us make the world a sweeter place. A huge thank you to everyone — for everything!

Instructors

Primary Principal Instructor

Dr. Sumit Biswas (Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences)

Dr. Sumit Biswas was the PI for the first ever iGEM team from BITS Pilani University! We would like to thank him for making it possible for us to participate in the iGEM competition and providing us with a workplace and resources to materialise our ideas. We really appreciate his engagement with the project and the ability to ask him questions and discuss potential ideas at any time. His constant support and guidance throughout the competition season enabled us to reach this stage.

Secondary Principal Instructor

Dr. Malabika Biswas (Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences)

Dr Malabika Biswas guided us on experimental design, wetlab techniques and the design of sequences. Her valuable inputs helped us develop and ameliorate our project. We also thank her permitting us to use her lab space and resources to plan, design and conduct our experiments.

Advisors

Varsha Jaisimha, iGEM Ambassador for South Asia, for mentoring us throughout the competition season, and for providing valuable and significant feedback about each component of our project.

Team

Shruti Sridhar worked on creating the killswitch, the biosensor, and the scaling-up processes while also helping out with the modelling of our genetic constructs. She spearheaded our collaboration with the University of Rochester on their Science as an Art initiative. Shruti also played a significant role in constructing our Human Practices approach and our Accessibility Initiative. In addition, Shruti helped out with the Language Project by translating content into Tamil and also contributed to our Education & Outreach initiatives.

Arya Agarwal worked on organising the AIIM BioSummit in collaboration with MIT-Manipal and was extensively involved in our social media management (Twitter) and the content design for social media.. She also featured in a podcast created by iGEM UPF Barcelona. Arya also contributed greatly towards the Human Practices area of our project.

Gourav Saha worked on experiment design and the construction and sequencing of the genetic circuits used in our project; furthermore, he also worked on hardware design. He also extensively managed our social media presence (Instagram) and our collaborations. Gourav also helped out with the Language Project by translating content into Bengali and with our Education & Outreach initiatives.

Yogen Borkar worked on the modelling team and helped model the biosensor along with designing the scaling-up processes. He was also a significant part of the Human Practices team and the collaboration with Rochester with his extensive knowledge of Indian classical music. Yogen also contributed to our Education & Outreach initiatives.

Ameya Thete worked on the modelling team and helped model the kill switch and the polymer inoculant. He was also a part of the Accessibility Initiative and the Language project where he helped out by translating content into Marathi. Ameya also dabbled a bit in wiki design and construction.

Pranav Ballaney was responsible for creating our wiki as well as our wiki starter pack. Pranav was also an integral part of the Accessibility Initiative — where he helped out by translating content into Hindi — and worked on making wikis more accessible. He also helped out greatly with the Human Practices content and approach as well as with the Education & Outreach programs.

Sharanya Shastri is our-go to design and animation person. She led our graphic design team and designed the overall aesthetic of our wiki, including all animations. She also designed all our posters and our presentation videos.

Suhas Badadal contributed greatly to the sequences team where he designed our parts and worked on experiment design. He also led the hardware team to develop a bioreactor. Suhas was also an important member of our Education and Outreach program as well as the Human Practices team by helping us set up meetings with stakeholders.

Saransh Gokhale is our in-house economist. He was responsible for framing our economic model and determining the economic utility and scalability of our product. Saransh also added the entrepreneurial dimension to our project.

Shrilaxmi Patil is our team spirit captain! She helped out the modelling team and is responsible for starting the Humans of iGEM initiative — a photoblog of the incredible people who make iGEM what it is.

Naman Choudhary was an active member of our wetlab and the sequences team. Naman also contributed to the Human Practices initiative by sourcing contacts and helping us set up meetings with stakeholders.

Itihaas Madala was responsible for designing the experiments that would help prove the viability of our product on a large scale. He also contributed to the modelling team by forming the double auxotroph model for our system.

General Support

André Hermann, Co-chair of the iGEM Policy Committee, for helping us understand the landscape of sugarcane farming and processing internationally, especially in Brazil. He also helped us propose a GMO policy for our project.

Mime Club, BITS Goa for their support and help in making our promotional video.

BITSMUN, BITS Goa for helping us organise the AIIM Biosummit.

Arul Murugan, Chemical Engineering Undergrad at BITS Pilani K.K. Birla Goa Campus, helped us reach out to farmers in the Tamil Nadu belt.

Wetlab Support

Vijay Hemmadi and Lakshmi Menon, researchers at BITS Pilani K. K. Birla Goa Campus, helped us with our bootcamp session and taught us laboratory techniques required for wetlab.

Drylab Support

Dr. Anirban Roy, Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, BITS Pilani K.K. Birla Goa Campus, provided valuable counsel regarding the design of our process flow diagram and bioreactor.

Rohan Ranganath, Chemical Engineering undergraduate, BITS Pilani Batch of 2020, aided us with the rationale and need for scaling up and the thought-process involved in drawing process flow diagrams and designing bioreactors.

Dr. Vivek Rangarajan, Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, BITS Pilani K.K. Birla Goa Campus, helped us extensively with the biochemical modelling of our project.

Ashish Dagade, helped us with scaling up and implementing a process flow diagram.

Shubhankar Londhe, 2019 iGEM team, IISER, Pune, helped us get started with the modelling of biological systems by providing valuable resources and guidance.

Benchling and Twist Biosciences for their support throughout the iGEM season.

Entrepreneurship

Dr. Bejoy K. Thomas, Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IISER, Pune, helped us determine the economic viability of our project.

Ujjal Sharma, Economics undergraduate at BITS Pilani K. K. Birla Goa Campus, Batch of 2023, provided feedback and some suggestions for improvement on the entrepreneurial aspects of the project.

Education and Outreach

Inner Wheel Victory Club, Lucknow for their help with our Accessibility and Outreach initiatives and providing us with a platform to distribute our STEM materials.

SynBio for Everyone provided us with engaging content on synthetic biology which could be distributed to Sparsha and the Inner Wheel Foundation, Lucknow.

Yoshi Goto, iGEM Ambassador for USA - West Coast, helped us streamline our Humans of iGEM initiative.

Deeksha, Bangalore provided us with a platform to engage with high school students for our synthetic biology webinar series.

Abhigyaan, BITS Goa provided us with a social media platform to engage with the general population for our Mythbusters series on the COVID pandemic.

Center for Technical Education, BITS Goa, provided us with an opportunity to conduct a course on engineering principles in biology for a diverse, interdisciplinary group of students.

Other

Icons made by Google from Flaticon

Icons made by Freepik from Flaticon

Icons made by iconixar from Flaticon

Icons made by Pixel perfect from Flaticon

Cover picture on Model and Experiment pages from American Society for Microbiology Agar Art Contest, "Marine Universe", Janie Kim

This wiki was created by the iGEM BITS Goa team of 2020 as a deliverable for the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. All content, unless explicitly stated otherwise, on this wiki is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (or any later version).

Cover images for some pages were sourced from Unsplash. Unsplash grants an irrevocable, nonexclusive, worldwide copyright license to download, copy, modify, distribute, perform, and use photos from Unsplash for free, including for commercial purposes, without permission from or attributing the photographer or Unsplash. This license does not include the right to compile photos from Unsplash to replicate a similar or competing service.

The BITS Pilani colour emblem is a registered trademark of Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani.